


touch me the way that you do in your dreams

by aquaexplicit



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Cisco Learn To Recognize And Communicate Your Feelings Challenge, Cisco's Abandonment Issues, Council of Cisco's, Emotional Hurt, Family, Lesbians Harrisco Make A Cameo, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Post Season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 16:55:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15934577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquaexplicit/pseuds/aquaexplicit
Summary: Cisco's choices are easy. He can either let Harry go, or give Harry something to stick around for.





	touch me the way that you do in your dreams

Cisco wouldn’t call them a Council, really. The reflections of himself that are gathered in his workshop, most grinning and spinning stories at each other, are too loose limbed for anything as structured as a Council. They alternate between showing off their powers and helping others learn to hone the same energy. They laugh too much to accomplish much of anything in between.

Earth 13 Cisco, call me Ray Cisco, brought a firewine that has set Cisco’s cheeks and tongue ablaze but slicked his insides easy. He watches the Earth 25 version of himself toss a shot of the liquid through a breach and catch it with his mouth. It sets a domino effect of giggles that hits Cisco last.

He’s wiping a tear from his lashes when the Earth 4 version of himself settles at his side. Echo, he introduced himself, with no hint of irony or a fun new pop culture reference to explain his name. He’s displayed none of the simple smiles or blue tinted showmanship that the other Cisco’s have been enjoying. Cisco honestly isn’t sure why Echo answered his call to help a brother heal his broken heart.

Echo watches, quiet, and the thin skin around his eyes speaks to an age beyond Cisco himself. Cisco doesn’t sense wisdom, exactly, from the brood that seems to follow Echo shadow like at his feet. But Cisco can feel the black hole in the center of him. The other Cisco’s feel it too. Ray is the only one who’s tried to fight the gnawing gravity of it. Cisco has kept his distance. The goal of getting his dopplebro’s together was to escape the chest quicksand of abandonment the last month threw him into. Not get tangled in another’s Cisco’s damage.

“A room full of people with the greatest power in the multiverse, and you all choose to use our gift to see who can do the most shots.” Echo shakes his head. He looks bored.

Cisco stares into his own half empty cup. “I’m sure they’d let you play, if you wanted. I’m only sitting out because Cesca made me.”

He frowns in her direction. Her hair is shorter than his. She wears it in a side braid and always has her lips painted in a new shade of red when she breaches in. The third time they met, she brought a cocktail from her Earth and admitted she was born with the name Francisco, too.

There is something warm about her palms on his shoulders, on his elbow, when she leads him away from the fray to drink water or sit out a round. She knows the least about the energy that can open and tear apart worlds, but the most about how to tap into the emotional vibes of others. She can drink the rest of them under the table, too. Cisco trusts her implicitly.

“She focuses on the wrong things,” Echo says, nodding towards her.

It’s the most Cisco has heard Echo comment on the way any of them use their powers. Curious, Cisco turns more fully towards him. “What are the right things, in your opinion?”

“My opinion.” Echo swirls his Solo cup, watching the alcohol slosh. He still looks bored. “My opinion doesn’t count for much.”

“I’d love to hear it,” Cisco says, not entirely honestly. He does want to know what Echo is thinking - what he knows about their powers, what secrets he’s holding that have already etched wrinkles in his skin.

Echo raises an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t like what I have to say.”

“Maybe not,” Cisco agrees easily. There’s a twitch on a half moon mark at the edge of Echo’s lips. It’s lighter than the rest of Echo’s skin. Cisco thinks it’s a scar, but when Ray asked about it, Echo didn’t answer. He didn’t even blink. “Will you at least tell me how you got your powers? Everyone else has showed and telled. Told.”

Cisco considers putting his drink on the table, the way Cesca advised him earlier. He’s usually better at talking than this. At least to himself.

“I’ve had our powers since I was 10.” Echo says it casually, voice as disinterested as his gaze. They watch tipsy versions of themselves make the wine bubble with their vibrations. “It doesn’t matter that I’ve had them longer. I’ve done more with them than any of you ever will.”

The arrogance of Echo’s words is easy to brush away. Cisco has had years of practice ignoring it. Harry’s face flutters behind his eyes, gravel rough as the echo of Harry’s voice in his ears. When Cisco downs the rest of his drink, Echo sighs.

“I came to make sure none of you were making any of my past mistakes. And of course, out of everyone, the most powerful is also the most stupid.”

Cisco squints. His head is too fuzzy with wine and a sudden spike of Harry related angst to decipher the wrinkle of Echo’s distaste.

-

It’s the fifth Multiversal Ramon Margarita Mixer before anyone asks if they can bring a plus one. Pablo, who breaches from Earth 20 and sports a tongue ring and five o’clock scruff, is the one who asks. Cesca elbows him in the ribs when he does.

They’re here for Cisco, she reminds him, and Pablo offers a soft sorry, man while looking at his own shoes. Cisco tells him not to sweat it. Cisco tells him to bring his plus one along. He thinks it could be good and he says it could be good. Seeing a version of himself that can actually sustain a relationship. Seeing a version of himself who hasn’t been left.

He thinks this until he sees Pablo step out of a breach with a man wearing Harrison Well’s face. His finger nails are black. A fist that opens in Cisco’s heart at the sight, squeezes it cold. The ache seizures from painful to debilitating when Cesca walks from her world into his, hand in hand with a statuesque woman whose smile lights up her Harry colored eyes.

Cisco greets them with hands and words that barely shake. He spends most of the evening hiding in Echo’s general aura of displeasure. It feels safer than hovering in the warm, breezy vibrations of the happy couples.

That night, Cisco lays on his couch, cheek pressed to the throw pillow Harry always used when he would fall into an exhausted heap in Cisco’s apartment. Cisco’s head is full of liquor heat. There is barely enough brain space for him to wonder how any version of himself could find that much joy in the arms of any version of Harry.

It hurts. It hurts more than the masochistic day dreams Cisco used to find himself dipping into, before Cynthia and all the leather wrapped aches she bloomed inside of him. The vision of Wells’ treating their Ramon’s well, following them from one world to the next instead of leaving them at one Earth’s dusty curb, haunts behind his eyes.

Cisco cradles himself in another shot and his own words slip inside his head. Those are other versions of Wells. Not his Harry. There’s only of those, designed to slide especially cruel into Cisco’s yawning, stupid need. He remembers the disappointment in Echo’s voice the last time he thought of Harry.

When Cisco falls asleep, his mind is blank. He doesn’t dream.

-

Harry hasn’t been back to Earth 1 since his grand, awkward exit. He calls every now and then. Joe or Cecile, to check on his god daughter. Barry, for questions about the speed force Jesse is to stubborn to ask.

Cisco he calls just to bother. Just to needle and prod and laugh at, with. Just to talk.

It’s annoying how Cisco’s throat closes when Harry’s ringtone brightens his phone. How even though Harry sprinted from the heart Cisco tore out save him, Cisco still lights up when Harry calls him. Cisco attributes the bee buzz of irritation to why his side of the conversation is always brisk.

Throat inflamed as he buries the misery of Harry’s absence in sarcasm, there is still an odd wave of comfort that rocks his chest whenever he bites or snips at the gentler shell on the other end of the line. Cisco’s never really had the opportunity to throw the things he’s bled for a Wells back at the particular version that cut him before.

He doesn’t mention the other Cisco’s, who have become his biggest binge drinking and Netflix partners. He isn’t going to. It’s too close to breathing life to failure, to giving voice to the lonely cavern of his gut, to admit he tore a page from Harry’s book about making friends.

But the team doesn’t let him have secrets for long.

“Allen tells me you’ve been hanging out with your multiversal counter parts.”

Cisco takes a sip of his mid afternoon beer, staring at the gauntlets he’s been wishing Harry was around to help him upgrade. He slams the bottle down. Harry probably doesn’t hear it. “Yeah. They’re the best drinking buddies in the multiverse.”

A beat. “Allen mentioned there was a Wells or two that joined some of them. Sometimes.”

“Yep.”

Cisco isn’t planning to give anything else. He’s always giving something - to Harry, to Barry, to Cynthia. It’s always too much. He wants to keep a few things for himself.

“He said there’s a girl me. A woman, I mean.”

“Yep,” Cisco clips again. When Harry doesn’t do more than breathe, Cisco takes another drink. “She’s a lot easier on the eyes than you are.”

“Yeah?” Easy laughter on Harry’s voice. Relief that Cisco is teasing back, which Cisco rarely indulges in anymore. “That’s not really a tall order though, is it?”

“No.” Cisco bites his own tongue as he says it. The denial comes out just as harsh as he meant.

“Well that’s - that’s fun, huh? Wells and Ramon. A dream team in more worlds than one.”

Cisco takes a greedy gulp of his beer. Then Harry moves. The sound of Harry’s clothes shifting, of Harry’s nerves, and Cisco is ready to slit their connection clean across the throat.

“Listen, Harry, I’ve - ”

“Maybe we should get them all together?” Harry suggests in a rush. “A multiverse mixer. I’m sure Sonny and HP and 2.0 would love to meet some other Cisco’s. Not that any of them can compare to you, of course. And we don’t have to invite Lothario.”

Cisco gives himself a moment to breathe. Flatten his fury and speak in a even tone. “2.0 ate the first Cisco he met. I don’t want to introduce him to anymore.”

“Oh,” Harry says, like he’s forgotten how many versions of himself have gutted Cisco over and over again. “I thought you - I mean, I thought you got over it. You guys are friends. He misses you.”

Cisco laughs, dry. “Sure he does.”

“He does,” Harry insists, gentle and knife like. “They all do.”

Do you, Cisco doesn’t ask. He knows Harry misses him the same way he knows it doesn’t matter in the grand, awful scheme of the universe. Whatever Harry feels for Cisco, it isn’t enough to keep Harry tethered to this Earth.

“I think it’d be - ”

“I gotta go, Harry.” The abruptness of the cut stills Harry’s tongue. Cisco takes advantage. “I’ll talk to you later, okay? The next time you decide to call.”

“You can call me too.” There’s a bitter aftertaste to Harry’s voice. Harry doesn’t get to be bitter. “Just because I’m not there for you, doesn’t mean I can’t be - ”

“Meta alert,” Cisco lies, heading towards his new mini fridge to grab another beer. “Real urgent.”

“Right. Okay. Be great, Ramon. I’ll call you later.”

Cisco hangs up.

-

“Why don’t you just tell them it bothers you?” Echo asks a few blurry days later. The Cisco’s gave gathered in Cisco’s apartment tonight. Echo nods at Cesca and Pablo, standing in the kitchen, leaning against the Wells Who Don’t Leave, smiling. “They’d understand.”

“It doesn’t bother me.”

“You know it’s kind of stupid, lying to an empath.”

Cisco resists the urge to stick his tongue out. The energy that radiates from Echo’s judging eyes, the stiffness of his spine, make Cisco feel young. Feel small, too, and out of his depth, the way it feels stepping into a forest that will outgrow his life and death.

“I think you’re the one who’s bothered,” Cisco taunts instead. “You’re always in a pissy mood, but I’ve never seen you glare as much as you have since those two brought their significant Wellses. Got something to share with the rest of the class?”

Echo continues watching the rest of the party, expression and vibrations even.

Finally, after several frustrating moments, Echo sighs. “No Wells is significant. Not really. Some of them have lead some of us to our powers, but we would’ve found them regardless.”

“Wells don’t always give us our powers?” Cisco asks. The idea is practically unfathomable, dark as the bottom of the ocean and as crushingly empty as space.

“A Wells didn’t give you yours,” Echo answers. Which, okay. Is technically true. “The universe, like time, wants to take a certain shape.” Echo continues. He watches Cisco with something Cisco can’t name. Can’t feel. “We do things for our Earth’s that need to be done. That have to happen, for time and energy to take that shape.”

“So I was the tool all along.”

Echo doesn’t laugh at the joke. Cisco has a moment to think, right, that was Harry he shared that with.

“There’s a fine balance between being a tool and a weapon,” Echo says, softer than Cisco has seen him before. “Between being what you need and what your world needs.”

It’s that word - balance, and you gave it to me - that snaps Cisco’s tenuous mood.

“And I guess you’ve struck the balance, huh? Come to teach the rest of us how to level out and be the well rounded heroes the multiverse wants us to be?”

A half smile, melancholy, lifts Echo’s lips. “Sounds like you got me all figured out, Cisco.”

Cisco downs the rest of his drink before slamming it on the coffee table. Echo doesn’t flinch, but Cisco can feel other eyes, the same as his, flicker to them.

“Well let’s have it, Sensei. What’s my problem?”

“You hold yourself back.”

Cisco aches to refill his Solo cup, splash Tequila burn on his eyes to black out the image of Reverb that overlays Echo’s grim expression.

“I don’t want to be a God,” Cisco says quickly.

Echo shakes his head. “Our Earth 2 counterpart was one of the few who ever craved that. And there are things bigger than us out there. They won’t let any of us cross that line. Besides, I didn’t mean you hold back your powers.”

Curiosity slithers over his anger, his rabbit heart fear, tugging his tongue against his teeth. Who are they, he wonders. How can they stop the apparently few and far between power hungry Cisco’s? How many have they stopped before?

“You stop yourself,” Echo says solemnly. “All the time. From feeling. From showing yourself. From wanting, even if what you want isn’t worth while. It’s what separates you from … them.” Echo makes a vague gesture to the Wells-Ramons still paired off in the kitchen.

“I don’t - that’s not - I don’t want that. Not with Harry.”

Cisco would be lying to say he’s never thought of it. Never wanted it in a vague but stretching across the pain of space way. But even his own masochism has limits. Harry’s heart is a mass of scabs. There is room for Jesse, and for the rest of the team, and for Cisco. Not enough, though. Harry may have been a man capable of yearning and lust and easy morning kisses, once, but the man who ran from this Earth to another isn’t.

Echo tilts his head. “But you do want. You want from him, even if it isn’t that.”

“It doesn’t matter what it is. I can’t - I’m not gonna get it. So it doesn’t matter.”

“You could,” Echo says, rough with irritation. “You just won’t.”

Before Cisco can argue, Echo stands. He watches Cisco through fundamental disappointment. “Wells are easy, Cisco. You can get anything from them. You barely have to give them anything back.”

Then Echo opens a breach, ripping the multiverse apart. He steps through the energy, taking Cisco’s sense and half a glass of Tequila Sunrise with him.

-

The words fill Cisco’s head. He can’t shake or drink or even dance them away in the arms of a sweet smiled woman at his new favorite bar. They won’t leave him alone.

Wells are easy.

Kendra wasn’t easy - she had a whole life, a whole mythos, behind her, and Cisco could rarely stand up against other mortal men, let alone ones shaped like soul mates. Lisa certainly wasn’t easy. Not with her grin, and her poor taste jokes that never failed to make Cisco laugh, or the way she never called him.

Cynthia should have been easy. Was, in the beginning. They were connected the moment he saw her. His heart just plugged into hers, simple as beating, and all it took was a flash of her confident power to make his knees shake. He thought it was going to be easy. Long distance was no distance when all it took was the wave of a hand to bring her to his bed. But she never wanted to stay.

No one is easy, Cisco thinks, furious at Echo planting the idea behind his eyes. No one is easy. Least of all a Wells. Least of all Harry.

-

The team try to be there for him, in their own ways. Ralph never lets him drink alone and Barry and Iris are always suggesting more training sessions, especially when Cisco finds his vibe blasts growing weaker. He blames it on exhaustion.

No one questions it.

None of them understand his powers enough to question it, really. None of them understand him enough, and he knows it’s his fault for hiding and never asking for more. But he doesn’t have too, know. He has the Cisco’s for what he can't get from his friends.

He doesn’t need anyone else.

-

Hours and liquor and one very questionable blackout hook up in Cisco’s new least favorite bar, Cisco is still sick with Echo’s little speech.

There’s only way to leech it out, Cisco decides, soft in his bed, tipsy on coconut vodka and Little Debbie cupcakes.

“Ramon?” Harry’s voice sounds sleep rough. Warm. Cisco has learned it intimately through too many late nights in the lab, watching movies, eating junk. “It’s 2 AM. Are you - is everything okay?”

“I was thinking about what you said. About a Ramon-Wells mixer.”

“You were thinking about it at 2 AM?”

“What else am I s’pposed to think about at 2 AM?” Cisco asks, annoyed. Wells are easy his ass. “What were you thinking about?”

There’s a shift of sheets on the other end. “I was sleeping, Ramon. And dreaming. Like you should be. Don’t you need eight hours of beauty sleep?”

“I’m beautiful regardless of how much I sleep.”

He waits for Harry to toss the bicker ball back. Instead, Harry half laughs. “Yeah, well. You should still be in bed.”

“I am,” Cisco says, at a loss.

Another shift. Harry doesn’t speak.

“So…” Cisco mutters. “You wanna tell me what you were dreaming about?”

“No,” Harry answers quickly. “You wanna tell me why you’re thinking about me in bed at two in the morning instead of sleeping?”

“Haven’t we talked about how I’m the funny one? It doesn’t work when you make jokes. It’s just. Weird. Unnatural.”

“We both know I’m the funny one, Ramon.”

“Funny lookin’,” Cisco says, easily. “We’re having a thing tomorrow. My lab at 7. I thought you’d wanna come.”

He hears Harry inhale. “You want me to bring the rest of the Harrison’s? You know. For - to mingle?”

“Nah. There’s only one Harry, you know?”

“I know.” A breath. “You know there’s. It goes both ways. There’s only one - ”

“So tomorrow,” Cisco fumbles awkwardly. “Be there or be square.”

Harry hesitates before he does it, but he agrees. “Okay. Tomorrow.”

-

The next morning, Cisco wakes up to a text from Harry, asking if he can bring anything to the party. Cisco has to yank on his own hair to prevent his stupid fingers from dialing Barry's number and bite his stupider tongue from begging Barry to speed back in time and slap his phone from his hands.

He only vaguely remembers his conversation with Harry. It's enough for him to realize Drunk Cisco gives no fucks about the consequences Sober Cisco has to face for his sloppy weakness.

Cisco considers canceling. Telling Harry someone's grandma died or maybe that a Cisco died or maybe that he died and just wanted to let Harry know from beyond the grave not to bother showing up. Obviously he can't tell Harry it was a liquor and loneliness fueled invitation. Harry would be disappointed in him.

So Cisco goes through the motions of the day, feeling increasingly like a poor, dumb hamster on a never slowing wheel. His mind tumbles until his head aches from tension and his teeth sharpen from every angry thing he keeps on his tongue.

By the time Harry steps through the breach, Cisco has managed to reflect his self-loathing onto Harry's toothy smile. Cisco restrains himself from throwing out a fuck off or pushing Harry right back through the glow. Pushing Harry back to his real family: the one that he didn't lie to, the one he didn't make watch him destroy himself, the one he didn't persuade into helping him.

“Hey,” Harry says, like they're greeting each other after a nights sleep apart and not after weeks. Cisco's anger sharpens. “I brought chips. And the gum you like.” 

“Groovy,” Cisco spits.

Harry blinks. “Did you want me to bring something else? You never texted me back.”

“Wasn't sure you'd actually show up.”

“You asked me to,” Harry says. He sounds defeated, as if it's what Cisco should've expected, as if Harry's never betrayed and disappointed him before. It pisses him off.

“Everyone's in the workshop. If you're coming, come on.”

Harry hesitates, but he follows.

-

It’s awkward, seeing Harry again after so long apart. It’s awkward how not awkward it is, and it’s awkward how awkward it is.

It’s definitely not easy.

Ray is fascinated by a Wells who wears all black - apparently the one he’s seen, only on television, is only ever clad in blue. The mental image is too much for Cisco.

“He seems nice,” Cesca tells him as she hops on the table next to him.

“No he doesn’t,” Cisco says.

Cesca smiles. “He seems nice to you,” she amends, more accurately.

“Yeah. Well.” Cisco tucks his hair behind his ears, an empty gesture to fill his empty hands. He’s noticed the other Cisco’s do it, too. “You haven’t seen us try to decide where we’re going for dinner.”

He watches Harry roll his eyes at some argument spiraling between Ray and Pablo. When Harry looks up, searching Cisco out, Cisco looks away.

There is a falter in Cesca’s vibrations. They lap at Cisco’s side, warm as a wave. Cisco knows what that gentle buzz means. Before he can jump off the table and retreat to the corner where Echo is ignoring Harriet and Henry as they try to strike conversation with the least friendly of their significant doppelgangers, Cesca places a hand on his knee.

“You should tell him, you know. How angry you are with him for leaving. How much you want him to stay.”

“He’s plenty aware of both of those things,” Cisco says.

Cesca frowns. “Then why did you invite him here? To rub it in his face, how happy you are together in different worlds? To withhold it, just to punish him? Or to try to get him to come back?”

All of the answers are true - Cesca must know, and she must judge him for the pettiness that’s built thick under his fingernails. When she squeezes his knee, he slides off the table, away from her touch and comfort.

“Cisco,” she says, soft. “You still don’t understand what you are to him. What he would give you, if you didn’t stop yourself from asking.”

Cisco narrows his eyes. “Have you been talking to Echo?”

“Not when I can help it,” she answers.

“Well you both seem to have the same ideas about what I should be doing with Harry. Maybe you should start your own little club.”

“Maybe he just wants you to point in a less destructive direction.”

It's the most hilarious thing Cisco has heard in weeks. “There's always a Wells at the end of my destruction. Trust me, nothing good is gonna come out of a path that leads to Harry.”

Cesca opens her mouth, probably to say something soul soothing, but Cisco absolutely doesn't want to hear it. He's going to tell her as much when Harry wanders into their space.

“Hey,” Harry says again. Cisco's nails dig into his palm. “The other yous are - very different. None of them get my references. Do they not have movies on other Earths?”

Cisco remembers asking the same question a few weeks ago. “No. It's crazy. Have you met Francesca?”

“Briefly. Hello, again.” Harry says as they shake hands. It's weird. “I hate to be rude - ”

“You love being rude,” Cisco scoffs.

“Okay. I'll give you that. I hate to be rude to a lady, but do you mind if I steal Cisco for a minute?”

The question is directed at Cesca, but Cisco is the one who answers. “Cisco minds. I'm about to go get a refill.”

“You don't think you've had enough?” Harry asks, gruff as ever.

The balance Cisco gave him hasn't made him any gentler. Any kinder. He just knows how temper it, ease it instead of poison himself with it. Cisco won't admit how grateful he is that Harry is still a dick.

“Nope. Why don't you ask Cesca to show you she and Harriet's wedding pictures? It was Princess Bride themed. Very classy.”

That seems to distract Harry from Cisco's soon to be full cup. “You're married?” he asks thickly.

Cesca smiles. “Yeah. Two years now.”

Cisco takes advantage of Harry's process time to step away. “I'll bring you both another beer.”

He steps away before either of them have the chance to say they don't need a refill.

-

Cisco takes a brief reprieve in an employee bathroom. It still feels strange, sometimes, that it's always empty.

When he exits, he half expects Harry to be hanging gnat like at the doors, waiting to express the full force of his annoyance at being ignored.

Harry isn't there.

Echo is.

“Jesus, dude. Sneak much?” Cisco says.

“What are you doing with that Wells?”

“Nothing,” Cisco says, shoving past his somber reflection. “Not that it's any of your business, bro.”

Echo slides on his heel to follow as Cisco walks away. “You're not doing yourself any favors, you know.”

Cisco stops. He turns, quick enough to untuck his hair, and crosses his arms. “What is your deal? I mean, you go from hot and cold so fast it physically pains me. First all Wells are worthless, now you want me to kiss and make up with my - with Harry. I can't figure you out.”

“It's not me that's got you all confused,” Echo scoffs. “You've done a great job of that on your own.”

“Fuck you.”

Before Cisco can turn again, Echo takes a bold step further into his space. They're the same height, but just as Echo seems to loom in age, he seems to stretch above Cisco.

“All of your denial is going to catch up with you, bro. It's going to affect your powers. Your world.”

“My powers are fine - ”

“Are they? You haven't been having trouble reading vibes? Picking them up? Controlling your blasts?”

Cisco clenches his jaw. “There have been some rough patches. But I’m tired, okay? Don't you ever get tired?”

“Not here.” Echo pokes his chest, above his heart. “It affects your powers as much as your head, and they're both a mess. A big part of untangling that is either letting your Wells go or getting what you need from him. You can't stay in this emotional purgatory.”

“I'm not in emotional purgatory, okay,” Cisco says, thinking that sounds exactly like the gray, blunt pain that clings to him.

Echo takes a step back. He looks frustrated, but when Cisco tendrils put a tenuous vibe, he can't feel the tightness Echo must. There’s no reading him.

“I told you, Francisco. Wells are easy.”

Cisco's shoulder slump under Echo’s confidence. “Not for me. At least not with _him_. And even if he was - I wouldn't know what to do.”

Echo watches him for several still, silent moments. Finally, he sighs. “If you want to cut Harry out of your heart, cut him. He’ll give you his throat.”

“And if that's not what I want?" Cisco asks thickly. "If I don't want him out?"

Echo crosses his own arms. When he answers, he doesn’t look Cisco in the eye. “Give him something to stick around for.”

-

Cisco’s phone blows up after he ditches his own party to curl up on his bed. Somehow his mini encounter with Echo has done more to spin his brains around than the alcohol. He squeezes his eyes shut and ignores the Star Wars text tones and Harry calling him at least five times.

Somehow, he falls asleep. When he wakes up, his vision is just unblurred enough to pull up Harry voicemails.

_Ramon, when are you coming back? Where are you? Ray won’t quit trying to take pictures with me._

_We’re running low on salt and vinegar chips. You wanna bring some when you come back? Or - I’ll go with you. Just call me back. Or text me. Where are you?_

_You have to come back. I’m here with all these Cisco’s, and they keep - it’s weird, okay, and I don’t understand why you asked me to come if you weren’t even going to talk to me. Or be around. Did I do something? I can apologize. I do that now. Just tell me if that’s what you - just call me, okay?_

_The other Cisco’s said you left. Said they don’t feel your vibes anymore. … Is that how it is, Ramon? I left, so you leave. Are we even now?_

There’s another message after that. Cisco deletes it.

-

Radio silence for three days. No other Cisco’s, no other Well’s, no Harry.

There’s a meta who can lift a car with one hand. Cisco learns this when she tosses a car at him. He holds his palms up and summons his vibes to push it away, but the only thing that vibrates from his hands is a pitiful simmer of power. Barely enough to roll a pencil across a desk.

Barry yanks him from the flying metal heap in the blink of an eye. There’s no disappointment in Barry’s gaze, but there is worry.

Another meta, and this time it’s Ralph saving him instead of the other way around. It’s just embarrassing enough to have Cisco diving face first into a pitcher with the Elongated Annoyance at a club Cisco can only stomach three drinks in. Caitlin joins them, eventually, and shares meaningful looks with Ralph every time Cisco orders another.

It’s easy to ignore. Their glances gnaw at the guilt that is settled always over his skin, but that’s easy to ignore, too. Especially with a drink. Everyone has a drink after a hard day at work. After a break up. After shame and hurt swirl them sore. He’s seen every one of them do the same thing, except for Barry, who still laments his inability to get hammered.

There are some more texts from Harry, some more calls that Cisco doesn’t answer. He thinks of how Harry really is playing into Echo’s prophecy - he’ll give you his throat - and wonders if he really should just drag the blade between them. Cut the wires of their connection out. It’s buzzed greatness before, sure - Cisco is smarter because of Harry, and faster, and sees a man in the mirror now instead of a boy. Harry is better off, too. Certainly not worse.

In the midst of his great indecision, he gets a vibe about a bank robbery, but everything is so watered down in his vision he barely gets the details right. He watches the crime unfold from the bottom of a pool and misses the time by an hour. No one is hurt, but it’s a close call.

Later, Iris asks him where his head is at. If it’s still caught up in Cynthia. Cisco lies, which he hates doing to Iris, and says yes. But the truth is, as deeply as Cynthia’s rejection of them sliced into him, he understood. She stitched up the cut she made when she chose her job over making time to step through a breach, to wake up with him.

She gave him closure. Kissed his pain goodbye. It’s the Harry shaped hole in his gut that’s still open. Still fresh, years after the initial tear.

Cisco knows Echo is right. He can’t keep ignoring the gaping wound. He has to repair it, or let it spread.

-

Harry picks up on the third ring.

Cisco feels too awkward to make the call sober - a few warm shots of whiskey that he keeps in a hidden drawer in his workshop desk has greased him slick enough to pull up Harry’s contact. His words don’t falter when Harry answers with angry silence. “I don’t wanna do the big talking thing.”

“Well since the world revolves around what you want, okay.”

A fresh wave of anger nips at Cisco’s belly. It’s at himself. Harry’s douchebaggery is justified, and Cisco gave him that justification.

“I was thinking. I was hoping, actually, that you were free.”

There’s a pause, then a sigh. “You want to ignore me at another party?”

“Kind of,” Cisco says, hoping it’s enough to make Harry laugh. When Harry does, stilted and stuttered but still enough to hear between Earth’s, Cisco eases back into his desk chair. “I was actually hoping to ignore you over movie night.”

“Has the Multiversal House of Ramon’s started a new tradition?”

“No. It’s just an OG Dream Team night.”

Harry takes a deep breath. “Just the Flash gang?”

Cisco takes a deeper one. Give him something to stick around for. “Just me and you. Just us.”

“Just us?”

“Is that okay?” Cisco asks, nonsensically. He knows the answer.

“Yeah, that’s okay. More than okay. Preferable, actually. What movie? Do you want me to bring something?”

“Just your salty ass attitude.”

Another laugh. “I’m all salt free now, Ramon. Jesse Quick said I was sweet just this morning.”

“Well she did learn how to lie from the best.”

“Just wait. You’re gonna see how sweet I am now. Enough to give you diabetes.”

-

For a while, Cisco convinces himself movie night will be enough. They’ll unwind on the couch, close enough to barely touch, and relax into each other’s vibrations. They’ll make new inside jokes that will leave Iris and Barry sharing raised eyebrows and Harry will eat the chips from Cisco’s plate and Cisco’s heart will have that little needle ache, the one that reminds him this can’t last.

He picks Harry up via breach. Harry knows his movie library well enough to notice the new collections he’s added. He tells Harry to pick and watches Harry’s fingers linger over The Princess Bride.

“You wanna check out the new Pacific Rim?” Cisco asks, voice rolling thick.

Harry hesitates. “Seeing those pictures the other day. Kind of got me in the mood.” He glances over his shoulder. “You’re telling me you don’t want to watch The Princess Bride?”

“Just not in a schmoopy mood.” Cisco ignores Harry’s frown, the way it pulls at his own stomach. He moves to grab the other DVD. “But big robots? I am always in the mood for big robots.”

Harry smiles, tight, and for the first time Cisco truly understands that whatever has changed in Harry has changed them. Their connection as friends, as family, wasn’t enough to hold Harry’s hungry attentions. All of the parts Harry shored have fallen open. He’s going to want more, now.

Cisco doesn’t even have to test his theory. Harry sits close enough their knees almost bump, and when they get deeper into arguing for the sake of insulting each other, their legs keep bouncing against each other. He watches Harry pretend not to notice. When Harry gets up to refill his drink - just Cisco’s, not his own - he watches Harry hesitate before settling closer.

They finish the movie. Cisco tells Harry to pick another. He chooses some B level creature feature. Cisco sighs relief and tells Harry how the wolfman on screen looks suspiciously like a meta who could get in touch with his animal nature.

Harry nods like he’s heard the story before. “DA Cecile Horton filled me in. She said he attacked the CCPD.” He looks at Cisco, wrinkles coming together in that way Cisco can’t help but recognize as handsome. “She said you were kind of off your game. Dibny had to step in.”

“It was an off day,” Cisco says defensively.

“Been having a lot of those?” Harry asks but he’s not asking. “Cecile said there were some other incidences. Allen said the same thing.”

“Is this what you all do? Get around and talk about all of Cisco’s emotional and meta problems?”

He squares his feet, ready to stand, but Harry curls a hand around his shoulder. “Ramon, don’t. Running away is my thing, remember?”

Cisco shrugs his touch away.

“It’s not like we’re conspiring against you,” Harry sighs. “They’re worried about you. It made me worry about you. We all just want you to be safe. And - and happy.” He glances down into his own empty hands. “Is this about her? Cynthia?”

Harry says her name carefully, like it hurts him. Maybe it does.

Guilt flushes Cisco’s cheeks. “No. It’s not about her.”

“Is it about someone else?” Harry asks quietly.

Cisco slides his plate on the coffee table, freeing himself to turn and face Harry’s thin skinned nerves.

“The other me’s - one of them, anyway - warned me that if I kept denying my emotions, it would affect my powers. I guess he was right.” A beat. “I really, really hate that about him.”

“What, uh, are you denying exactly?”

Cisco tucks his hair behind his ears. “Just, you know. Stuff.”

“Stuff.” Harry raises his eyebrows. “Care to elaborate?”

“While I have a variety of great skills, sometimes I’m not great at admitting what I want or letting myself feel certain things. Not feeling guilt about either of those things.” He looks away from Harry’s earnest, open gaze. “Echo told me I have to be connected to all of it. Make some decisions. I can’t be Meta of the Year if my powers are fucked and my powers can’t get un-fucked if my head is all. Fucked.”

Harry clears his throat. Cisco wonders if maybe he should be more careful about the words he uses around Harry now that Harry doesn’t hide as much. Or more reckless. Enough that he doesn’t actually have to take the leap between risks - letting Harry go, or giving Harry enough to make him come back. Enough that Harry will make the decision for him.

“Well if you ever need a sounding board, you can talk to me. You know I’ll always be honest with you.”

Cisco bites his tongue on a laugh. He thanks Harry anyway.

-

Things are better, for a while. Cisco vibes clear and he spends less time taking shots with Ray and Pablo and more time drinking coffee with Harry, downing extra large cups so they can stay up to finish whole series in one night.

But Cisco was right the first time. It’s not enough.

-

It keeps taking Harry longer and longer to come back. Meetings, he says, even though Jesse is practically running the company in the absence of Harry’s knowledge and teeth. Classes, he says, even though he’s rebuilding his mental library with private tutors who are at his beck and call. Family time, he says, like that word still doesn’t coat Cisco’s throat in glass. Like that’s not what Cisco is. Now, though, Cisco knows what Harry means when he’s not counted in Harry’s familial circle.

Harry wants something different from him. Something more. Something worth coming back to.

Harry does make it to the next party. Ray declares it Hot Teddy Thursday. No one has heard of the drink, but no one questions it. Cisco stands next to Harry most of the night, sipping and humbling Harry’s voice when Harry tells of Cisco’s heroics. It’s not modesty, Cisco insists, it’s keeping Harry checked into reality.

Echo is absent. Cisco couldn’t bring himself to invite him, knowing Echo would spend the night not so silently judging the weak, clumsy steps of his feet and how he just hasn’t been able to bring himself to close the gap between wanting and having.

Cesca and Harriet linger gauze like around them most of the night. Harry tries to bury his questions about their domesticity in questions about their archeology work, but even Harriet doesn’t need to read vibes to see what Harry is attempt to excavate. The women are more than polite. They tell Harry everything he wants to know, smiling especially soft when they mention they were born when the names of the men standing in front of them. Harry nods, doesn’t prod, and Cisco sees them squeeze each other’s hands. Harry sees it too.

As the party winds down, Cisco takes a final shot of courage. He wants more nights like this. He wants his mind to beat stable with his heart, and the connection between his feelings and his powers to buzz clear of self denial static. He wants Harry in his life as more than a sporadic, awesome presence.

He wants, and he knows Harry does, too. It’s close enough to the same thing that Cisco’s fingers don’t shake when he catches Harry by the forearm.

“It’s pretty late on Earth 2, isn’t it?”

Harry responds predictably. “It’s Earth 1, and yeah. Even with patrolling, Jesse should probably be asleep by now.”

Cisco didn’t ask about Jesse. His heart thrums when Harry glances at their skin, pressed together over fabric and thinning boundaries.

“If you don’t want to wake her,” Cisco says, leaving the offer heavy in the air. He doesn’t have to say anything else before Harry is agreeing to stay at his place tonight.

Wells are easy, he thinks, and breaches them to his apartment.

-

Harry hesitates between the bed and the couch after stepping out of the void. Not for the first time, Cisco wishes he could afford more than a studio. A door between his bedroom and the rest of his space seems like it would ease the rush of his pulse. Give him privacy from the heavy roll of nerves weighing against his tongue.

“We can share a bed, Harry. It’s not like we haven’t shared before.”

Swallowing, Harry adjusts his glasses. “We’ve never shared a bed.”

“I can take the couch, if that makes you more comfortable.”

“No,” Harry says quickly. “It’s a big bed. I’m sure we can both be comfortable. Way more than on the couch.”

They slip their shoes and socks off in silence. Harry slips his jacket off his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor, in synch with Cisco’s overshirt. When Harry sits on the edge of the bed, Cisco finds his voice.

“You gonna leave your belt on?” he asks, unbuckling his own.

It takes Harry looking at his fingers, looking away, curling his hand into Cisco’s sheets. “I guess. I guess I don’t need to leave it on to sleep, huh?”

Cisco waits for Harry to slide his own belt to the floor, waits for Harry to lie back on the bed, before taking his next deep breath.

“Is this your side?” Harry asks when Cisco doesn’t move to join him.

There’s lead between Cisco’s toes. His steps are slow, heavy. Harry watches as if he can feel it, compressing his chest, squeezing his breath shallow.

“Ramon?”

“It is my side.” Cisco stops with his feet under the bed. “But it’s okay, Harry.”

Harry pushes himself up on his elbows. He doesn’t move to the other side, though. Doesn’t take his eyes off of the hollow between Cisco’s throat.

“I can scoot over,” Harry breathes, body still.

Cisco bites his lip. Watches Harry watch him. Exhales. “We can share,” he offers softly.

“I don’t,” Harry stutters. His tongues passes over his bottom lip and Cisco let’s himself notice. “We’re already sharing. Right?”

Curling his fingers under his own shirt, lifting it as slowly as he inhales, feels like the first drink that pushes him from the edge of sober to tipsy. It burns inside his throat, stings his eyes, but it silences the gnat of guilt haloing his head. It makes everything easy.

“Ramon,” Harry says, sharp and under his breath. He sits up further. “Cisco.”

Cisco brings his fingers to his pants button. Before he can finish undoing it, Harry’s hand curls warm around his wrist. The grip is tight. Anchoring. For a moment, it feels like Harry will never let him go.

“What are you doing, Cisco?”

Harry’s voice is thick and oil slick over Cisco’s exposed skin. Cisco's hair stands on end, desperate to be closer. Cisco unzips his pants with Harry’s fingers still over his pulse.

“What are you doing, Cisco,” Harry repeats. It doesn’t sound like a question, this time.

“Don’t you know what I’m doing?”

Harry shakes his head, but his gaze is fixed like the North Star on the waistband of Cisco’s briefs.

Breathing through his nose, Cisco lifts Harry’s hand, bringing Harry’s trembling fingers to brush over his mouth. Harry shudders. Full body, mouth open, like it hurts him from the inside out to feel Cisco’s lips at the tips of his skin.

“Do you know what I’m doing now?” Cisco asks against Harry’s palm.

“No,” Harry says helplessly. “I thought you were still mad. I thought you didn’t - ”

Cisco’s too tired to convince Harry with words. But he doesn’t think he needs to. Harry isn’t looking away, isn’t pulling away, and when Cisco’s heart eases enough to allow him to straddle Harry’s lap, Harry’s free hand curls automatically around his hip.

Eyes closed, Cisco kisses Harry for the first time - just his lips against Harry’s palm. Harry’s fingers sink through his skin, a knife through butter.

“I’m not mad, Harry.” He lays his palms flat over Harry’s chest. The beat of Harry’s heart underneath his fingers is enough to pop them. “I just missed you. I just wanted you to stick around.”

“I missed you too. And I did - I do want to stick around.” Harry’s gaze drags hot over his chest, his stomach, before dropping between his legs. “What is this, Cisco?”

Incentive, Cisco doesn’t say. He rubs his touch over Harry’s shoulders. Harry’s eyes close.

“This is what you want,” Cisco says gently. “And what I want.”

He isn’t lying. He doesn’t feel like he’s lying. This is what it will take to get Harry to stay, to come back, and among all the possible things in the multiverse, that’s what Cisco wants. And Harry is so sturdy beneath him, so warm, handsome and real and barely breathing around his own need.

Harry’s thumb sweeps over his exposed hip bone. “Do you? You keep pushing me away.”

“Because you keep running.” Cisco lets his knuckles sweep over Harry’s stomach. Harry shudders. “I wasn’t going to ask you to stay when I knew the answer would be no. I wasn’t going to put everything on the line when I wasn’t sure how long it would last.”

Harry’s other hand finally slips to mirror his first. “I won’t do that anymore. That’s not who I am now, Cisco.”

Cisco shifts for the first time. His thighs are starting to ache from the spread, but when he adjusts, he can feel Harry, hot underneath him. Harry’s nostrils flair.

“You can - we can have this, Harry. But only if I know for sure that when I wake up, you’re gonna be here. That when you leave it’s not gonna be weeks before I even get a text back.”

Cisco swallows. He lets his hands flutter over Harry’s, lets himself press Harry’s touch further and harder. The weight of Harry’s want, the sureness of it, makes it easier to say the next words out loud. Easier than Cisco ever thought it would be.

“I need to know that when you talk about family, that you’re talking about me.”

“Of course I am,” Harry says immediately. “I always have been. Cisco, you - other than Jesse, no one else is more like family to me. No one else means more.”

Cisco kisses Harry for the second time, then. He takes Harry’s jaw between his palms and dips forward, pressing his closed mouth to Harry’s as gently as he can manage. He ignores how untrue Harry’s words feel, how everything Harry’s done in recent memory screams that Cisco is just as easy to leave as he is to touch. Instead he focuses on Harry’s lips, chapped and dry and warm. He focuses on the way Harry’s hands brush over his ribs, rolling shivers and a surprising wave of want through Cisco’s spine.

One of Harry’s hands pauses at his cheek, and the other curls into his hair. Harry deepens the kiss before he should. Doesn’t give them time to learn each other softly before he’s sweeping his tongue into Cisco’s mouth. It takes Cisco’s breath away, the intensity he probably should’ve expected from Harry’s machine gun mouth. Cisco gasps into the kiss like it’s his first.

The fingers not pulling pleasant shivers over Cisco’s scalp moves like ravenous little mouths, all nipping at Cisco’s skin, over his shoulder and arm then down. Harry gropes his ass before using the grip to pull Cisco closer.

Cisco moans when the movement rocks their hips together. Harry groans. The sound is heavier in Cisco’s ears than he ever expected, not that he ever expected - even when he was letting the stone of his decision to make this move sink, the walls he built around ever letting himself feel this for Harry, go here with Harry, stopped him from imagining any details. He never considered how Harry would kiss him, or touch him, or drink him greedy and desperate. He never considered how it would melt him.

He’s struggling to meet the demands of Harry’s mouth. In an attempt to anchor himself, he grips Harry’s biceps. The muscles feels as good as they look. It draws him further in, further forward. Harry lifts his hips, pushing them closer together, and for the first time Cisco realizes how hard Harry is. How hard he is.

He breaks the kiss, panting Harry’s name, gasping for breath. Harry’s teeth find his throat.

“You - Jesus, Harry. You can slow down. We have time.”

But even as he says it, he re-considers it. Harry is kissing over his collarbone, moving down his chest, and Cisco thinks maybe he should just let Harry’s mouth run to it’s final destination without any sort of protest. He slips his own fingers into Harry’s hair with the intention of holding him still, but the flat of Harry’s tongue drags over his nipple, and Cisco abandons the plan immediately.

He’s arching into the wet flick of Harry’s mouth when Harry pulls away.

“Dick,” Cisco says breathlessly.

Harry doesn’t smile. He stares up at Cisco, which is a new, thrilling experience all its own. His eyes have bled shark black, dilated with blood lust, and his mouth is kiss slick red.

“Is that how you want it, Cisco?” Harry asks. He sounds like he’s been gurgling asphalt. “Slow?”

Cisco’s grip tightens in Harry’s hair.

It makes Harry flinch, but not back down. He closes his eyes and breathes. Slow. “I can. If that’s what you want, I can go slow.” Harry’s hand slips to cup his jaw, thumb sweeping over his lower lip. The other hand grips his ass harder. “Whatever you need, Cisco. Just tell me. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Cisco can barely breathe around the offer. He’s not prepared for Harry’s passion and acquiescence and the way Harry is staring at him like he’s the desperate one, the one who would do anything to keep Cisco’s love close.

Brain addled lust and heartbreak dumb, Cisco slips into his instincts. Don’t think about it, he tells himself, and gives in to everything he’s denied.

He tilts his head, catching Harry’s thumb as it presses on his bottom lip. Harry bites his own lip as Cisco sucks it into his mouth.

“Cisco,” he whispers, pressing against Cisco’s tongue. Cisco can’t do much more than groan around the pressure. “Tell me how to make it good for you.”

Cisco pulls away. There’s something satisfying about Harry’s moan of disappointment, but the sound he makes when Cisco grinds against him is infinitely better.

“You tell me,” Cisco pants.

Even if he’s letting himself feel this, want this, it has to be about Harry. It has to be enough to convince Harry to stay. He leans in to kiss Harry again. On the mouth, then the cheek, then the shell of his ear. Harry gets both hands on his thighs, fingers digging in, and Cisco learns that Harry likes hearing him whine against his neck.

“I know,” Cisco says, words stuttering when Harry’s touch slides further up his legs, closer to where he’s neediest. “I know you want me. Show me how. Show me what you’ve been dreaming about.”

Harry makes a hungry sound, and then Cisco finds himself on his back.

He blinks into Harry’s face above him. Harry is watching him with that animal intensity that makes Cisco want to bare his throat. Nerves and need tangle in his stomach. He tries to smile, but all he can manage is staring at Harry, both of them open mouthed and wanting.

Harry anchors one hand by his head, catching his hair, making him wince. There’s a muttered apology as Harry moves. Harry’s other palm settles on his belly. Cisco shudders, sensitive.

Then Harry leans in, dragging their cheeks together, speaking against Cisco’s ear the way he apparently likes himself. “I want to get you off.”

Cisco surges against him. He gets a leg around Harry’s hips, a hand on the narrow of Harry’s waist. “Yeah? That’s pretty generous of you, Harry.”

“That’s what I want to start with.” Harry grins. It’s blinding in the low light of the apartment.

Harry makes himself useful, helping Cisco slide from his pants and underwear. He's fairly useless once Cisco is naked, though. All he does is stare.

“A guy could get self conscious,” Cisco says, self conscious as Harry crawls back over him. “Being naked while the other person is fully dressed and all.”

Harry pauses. “Make you a deal?”

Cisco nods. He meets Harry in another tongue tangled kiss. When Harry pulls away, he's breathing hard.

“I'll get naked too,” Harry promises. His mouth hovers just above Cisco's. “If you show me how to touch you.”

Cisco almost laughs. Of course Harry would make it like this. All push and pull, all competition. His demand is half dare, half desperation. That's always how it is between them. There's no middle ground between teasing and begging.

Cisco whispers, “Deal,” and drags Harry into another kiss.

There's lube in the nightstand drawer, but Cisco doesn't reach it for it, yet. Instead he lets Harry lick his palm before sliding it along the head of his cock. He hisses, pressure too gentle, too much, and Harry watches, enraptured.

“Thought we had a deal, Harry.”

Harry doesn't move. He stares at Cisco with his tongue caught between his teeth. Cisco tries to slow himself down, stop his fingers from wrapping in a tease around his dick, but it's difficult with Harry looking at him like he's seen fires burn less hot.

“Harry,” he says again, weaker, as weak as he feels.

Finally, Harry stands. He undresses quickly as Cisco fucks into his own fist. Cisco's hips tremble when Harry's fully nude. It's overwhelmingly real, now, with both of them bared and torn.

Harry reads Cisco's realization as something else entirely. He smiles entirely too smug and slides back onto the bed.

“Told you I could fill my britches, Ramon.”

Cisco has the urge to smack him. He almost does, but his gaze catches between Harry's legs, and cold spreads along the heat in his lower belly. He's struck with the sudden fear that Harry might want to fuck him, or worse, might not want to. Cisco swallows around a mouth water roll of lust.

“I hate you,” is all Cisco manages to say between hot, heavy sighs.

Suddenly Harry catches him around the wrist. He doesn't stop the slick glide of Cisco jacking himself off, but he does slow it, controlling Cisco's speed and the tightness of his fist. Cisco watches their hand move over his cock until the image is too much. His head falls back against the pillow.

“No you don't,” Harry says, bringing Cisco's hand up to lap it wetter. “You love me. You love me too.”

Cisco can't agree. He can't speak, and he can't nod, and he can't deny it. He's shown it, more than Harry has. He shouldn't have to say it too.

Harry doesn't make him. He just leans in, kissing every slick slide of skin he can reach. Cisco angles his other hand with an awkward twist of his elbow to finally brush his fingers along Harry's cock.

“Get the lube. In the drawer. Come - ah, come on.”

Harry follows Cisco's instructions, but it's nothing new. Harry always does what he's asked as long as it benefits him.

Cisco doesn't have to tell Harry what to do with it. Harry stops guiding him, takes the hand that's touching him, and coats it before urging Cisco to jerk him off again. Harry's hips surge into his grip. He keeps going, selfish, for several breaths until he drizzles lube over Cisco's cock. It spills messy over both of their fingers, slicking the control Harry still has over Cisco's movements.

“Dream about this all the time,” Harry admits in a moan and a particularly clumsy thrust. “You wanting me. Letting me.” He burrows against Cisco's neck, groaning. “Loving me back.”

The admission drips over Cisco's skin like acid. He feels caught, wrong, but he shakes the uneasiness from his head by skirting his teeth over Harry's shoulder. He's giving Harry what he dreams about. He's giving Harry something worth coming back to. That's love. Cisco is certain.

They get each other off like that, fumbling and sweating and mouthing at each other. Harry coats both of them in lube again, and Cisco's hands keep slipping, and they laugh into a few of each other's kisses. It feels good and terrible and inevitable when Cisco finally comes, adding to the mess between them. Harry falls not long after.

When they've spilled themselves, Harry steals what's left of his breath in a kiss. Cisco follows the motions until Harry collapse half on him, half next to him.

“That was,” Harry says, eyes closed, smiling.

“Yeah,” Cisco agrees. He leans into Harry's heat. Hesitant, he reaches to stroke Harry's cheek. Harry sighs into the touch. “It was.”

-

Cisco always sleeps better with someone near him. He blames all the years he and Dante spent sharing a room. When he wakes up, it's more than five hours after he went to sleep. That's a first for the past several months. Harry is stirring next to him.

“Hey,” Harry says. His hair is a mess and there's a red mark on his cheek from the pillow. He cups Cisco's face. “You're quite a sight in the morning.”

Cisco can't tell if he's teasing or not. He decides it doesn’t matter when Harry snuggles closer, pressing a kiss to his forehead. It hurts a little to shove one of his arms under his head, but it gives him space to slide his arm around Harry’s bare stomach and tuck his heat underneath Harry’s chin.

“Not gonna lie,” Cisco says quietly, tongue swelling in his mouth. “I wasn’t sure you were gonna still be here.”

Harry drops another kiss to his hair. “Not gonna get rid of me that easy. Not now.”

Cisco closes his eyes. He lets Harry pull him closer, and breathes in the scent of Harry’s skin as Harry brushes chills up and down his back. Eventually, Harry falls back asleep, holding him like they’ve done this a hundred mornings before.

It’s more difficult for Cisco to get back to sleep, but he does. His eyes close to the lullaby of Echo’s words. Of how right he was.

Wells really are easy.

It’s Cisco’s that are complicated.

**Author's Note:**

> on ciscio's powers: i know there's nothing in cw canon regarding cisco's powers being connected to his emotions, but i thought it would be an interesting thing to explore in this fic. 
> 
> a million thanks to darknessandterrorandkittens for test reading this, pointing out errors, and giving this the champ seal of approval that always makes me feel better about posting fic i'm unsure of!


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